I just got an email from Emily over at Electric Pulp indicating that the ARSE test — the Asshole Rating Self-Exam — recently surpassed over 150,000 completions (152, 234, with a mean of score of 6.4). So the self-examination continues. A lot of people continue to take the test for themselves and others, as over 5000 people a month are still taking it.
I also have a number of other "ARSE Tools" out there, although none are nearly as successful as the original ARSE Test.
The next most popular is the ACHE, the Asshole Client from Hell Exam, for determining if your client is a certified asshole. This was inspired by this beleaguered fellow at a professional services firm. We’ve had 12,180 completions, with a mean score of 14.3 (very high, this is out of 20, I guess there are lot of asshole clients out there, or at least people who have asshole clients are attracted to the ACHE.)
The Flying ARSE hasn’t been nearly as popular, this is a self-test to determine if you are the kind of person who makes air travel miserable for everyone. A total of 7582 have completed the flying ARSE, and the mean is 3.82 out of 24, which suggests that most people see themselves as civilized passengers. But, boy, do the bad ones stand-out (I was literary knocked down by an overly aggressive passenger in Newark the other day, who decided that he had to get off the plane first the other day — and I wasn’t the only victim.)
Finally, bringing-up the rear is ARSEmail, a kind of e-card that you can send to apologize for being an asshole to co-worker or to express sympathy to the victim of a workplace asshole. The ARSE mail has always been my favorite, but perhaps that is just a rationalization because it took longer to develop than the others. But it has not exactly caught fire, as only 703 have have been sent. By the way, when Guy Kawasaki saw the ARSEmail, he predicted that it would not be very viral because it was too complicated to complete. I guess he was right, and of course, when it comes to predicting and crafting things that people will spread on the web, Guy has a mighty good track record.
I would be curious if people have any other ideas about why some of these ARSE tools have been so much more viral than others. And if you have any ideas about other experiments that I might try with different web-based surveys and the like, let me know. They aren’t that hard to do — at least all were pretty easy (thanks to the people at Electric Pulp) except perhaps for ARSEmail.
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